Assessment

Author Comments

This was a commission for Svaros of a member of one of their alien species known as the Proginy finding an amalgamate matriarch on one of their colonized planets. Thankfully though their species is resilient to the amalgamate and have ways of disposing them. Svaros also requested a bit of story for this so here ya go:

"Can't really say for certain when the amalgamate got on the planet. The majority of it is mainly uninhabited and barren, save for the few young cities that had been built on the one side of the planet. However recently something had began to spur below the planets crust. The amalgamate, in the large cave systems snaking below the whole planet had taken notice of the new arrivals on the planet. It quickly became apparent that the progenitors were not the only species living on this planet, as the expeditions that traveled farther away than a few miles off of the colonies soon discovered this alien organism thriving in the underground network of caves. Some of the smaller colonies set up as sort of outposts to the larger colonies soon fell to the amalgamate, barely leaving a trace as all inhabitants were dragged underground. The local xenobiohazard units did their best to contain the amalgamate as it became a known threat, and they had a few successes in containing it, but due to the nature of the planet with its unmappable cave systems and innumerable cracks and holes on the planets crust it was impossible to determine where it would show up next. After enough containment failures and the amalgamate drawing ever closer to the larger colonies was the military called to the scene. Very soon the amalgamate had been drawn close to the main colonies on the planet, driven by the potential biomass there, but before this could happen, an impressive fleet of the progenitor military arrived to the colony. Part of this fleet was lieutenant Orleson, who had previously made acquaintances with the amalgamate and had been later genetically modified to be immune to it. Being the perfect candidate to assess the situation at hand he took it upon himself to assess the level of infection on the planet, but mainly near the colony for now.

Sure enough he couldn't find a trace of the amalgamate around, not even from the sky. It seemed like the amalgamate was exclusively staying underground, a puzzling choice, but perhaps it was to stay concealed. Time was ticking for the colony however and an assessment had to be made on its survivability. Orleson decided to go underground to check the situation, armed with cryogenic weapons he descended into one of the several rock formations that lead into the depths of the planets tunnel system. Everything seemed fine up until he gradually began to see more and more bio luminescent plants in the dark caves, something that stood out from the otherwise rocky environment. His scanners made it obvious that these plants were indeed a form of amalgamate. The deeper he went the more numerous these plants would become, in some cases making his flare and flashlight almost unnecessary. Then he finally jumped into a large open cave branch where once seeing what was there he made his assessment: 'You gotta be shitting me.'"